Overnight Oatmeal

Overnight Oatmeal (Picture from Eating Well - see link below)

Oatmeal is one of my favorite wintry breakfasts: it’s hot, healthy, filling, and can be made with many different, delicious flavorings. Most of the traditional versions are sweet, but Mark Bittman writes about savory options as well. Someday, I’ll try that, but not this week. Overnight Oatmeal will last me more than a week.

As an easily available, minimally processed grain, oatmeal should be cheap. In its most common form, as instant oatmeal, though, it’s expensive, more processed, heavily sweetened, and contains ingredients that are listed as chemicals. It’s still better than super-sugary cold cereal, but it’s not what oatmeal should be. If you make your own stove-top oatmeal, it involves more time than I’m willing to bother with in the morning (15 minutes of attention), and if you want the less-processed, steel-cut oatmeal, it would take 30 minutes. So here’s a solution that I found: Overnight Oatmeal in the crock pot.

This recipe is very simple, non-dairy, and cheap. The sugar comes from dried fruit, and you can add more to each serving according to individual tastes. I add another 1/3 c. raisins and 1/3 c. crystallized ginger (cut down to around raisin-sized). When you serve it, add some milk (almond/ soy if you’re avoiding dairy) for texture, fresh fruit, and honey, maple syrup, or brown sugar if it isn’t sweet enough for you. I reheat it in the microwave with those things, and add a handful of nuts, too. I highly recommend this if you like oatmeal. It really beats instant oatmeal hands-down!

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Responses

Almost every morning I’ve been eating yogurt, fresh, frozen and dried fruit with granola, flaxseed and chia seeds for about a year now and just an hour ago I decided I was sick of it. I’m going to try this next! I’m so excited! I will let you know how it turns out.